Aggressive Diabetic Treatment May Prove Fatal: Study

Though, lowering blood sugar to near-normal levels is a proven treatment for Type 1 diabetics, but for those diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, driving to reach near-normal blood sugar levels can prove fatal, a team of U.S. researchers announced yesterday.

Type 2 diabetics undergoing aggressive treatment to lower blood sugar levels to near-normal levels face higher risk of death from a heart attack or stroke, compared to those targeting a more modest reduction of sugar levels.

Though the reason behind the increased death risk is still baffling, the researchers called off the clinical trial and informed volunteers to consult their physicians and switch to a less intensive therapy.

"As always, our primary concern is to protect the safety of our study volunteers," said Elizabeth G. Nabel, director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, which is sponsoring the study ACCORD (Action to Control Cardiovascular Risk in Diabetes).

The study enrolled 10,251 patients aging between 40 and 82 at 77 sites in the United States and Canada. Volunteers diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes for at least 10 years had high risk for heart disease either due to high blood pressure, high cholesterol or obesity.

For the study, about half were placed on a regimen combining diet and exercise with commonly used drugs designed to lower their blood sugar levels to those of the average person with diabetes.

Meanwhile, the remaining half were put on a more intensive regimen designed to strike blood sugar levels closer to those of someone without diabetes.

Over a four year period, 257 people in the intensively treated group died, compared with 203 in the standard-treatment group, a difference of 54 deaths -- or 3 per 1,000 participants per year.

"This is an important finding which shows that if you have Type 2 diabetes, very intensive treatment may be detrimental," said Nabel.

"There appeared to be some benefit of an overall lower death rate in both groups . . . but the harm of very intensive treatment outweighed the potential benefit," Nabel stated while calling off the trail.

As for now, the patients receiving intensive treatment will be switched to standard treatment as soon as possible.

An estimated 21 million Americans suffer from Type 2 diabetes-in which body tissues become resistant to the effects of insulin. A little less than 3 million people die of it each year, with 65% of the deaths linked to cardiovascular disease.